STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- Nobody needs to panic

By Matt Murphy STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

Monday

Jul 30, 2018 at 9:45 AM

A recap and analysis of the week in state government.

With the air outside as thick as a legislative agenda that's getting riper by the day, the final week of July had its share of drama, deception and bruised egos, just maybe not the kind seasoned building-watchers have come to expect.

Often a time for late nights, gubernatorial finger-wagging and drawing lines in the sand when everyone wishes they could just be at the beach, the atmosphere in the State House lacked some of that sweaty-palms urgency that comes with a looming deadline.

Both the House and Senate met only twice last week.

And while new Senate President Karen Spilka's decision to give her charges a long weekend on her first day in the big chair deeply irked Speaker Robert DeLeo, only time will tell if Spilka should have been more concerned.

Gov. Charlie Baker, instead of making their lives difficult (which he could have) did Democrats a favor by wrapping up his review of the fiscal 2019 budget two days early and vetoing six times less in spending from the budget than he did last year.

That left leaders in both branches feeling better about their ability to override most, if not all, of the governor's spending objections and still have time to consider the 19 budget amendments he sent back and the dozen or so major policy pieces left in the hopper before July 31 at midnight.

DeLeo took several jabs at the Senate for not being in session last weekend, but he did so as he made the decision to send his members home as well. The House, as it must, got the ball rolling on overrides July 27, and the Senate was to pick up July 30 as they returned with hope that the weekend would also be fruitful for compromise between the branches.

Unlike Spilka, DeLeo said he's not sure everything will get done in time, but history suggests lawmakers would be racing Father Time at 11:59 p.m. on July 31 regardless of whether they spent July 28 at the State House or at home in their districts.

The House and Senate started the week with 10 active conference committees, two major bills -- opioid abuse treatment and economic development -- getting hashed out on the side, and one bill -- housing -- with a giant question mark next to it.

Opioids and economic development were still very much in play and the fate of the governor's housing bill was still unknown, but five conferences committees did strike deals.

Barring something unforeseen, automatic voter registration will soon be standard practice and civics will be taught in public schools, but won't be a graduation requirement. The state in the coming years will invest $2.4 billion in climate change adaption and coastal protection infrastructure, and veterans will have a slew of new benefits coming their way. Consumers will also be able to freeze their credit for free, and victims of data breaches will have access to credit monitoring services at no cost.

And, no, that wasn't a typo. The senator from Ashland is, in fact, the new Senate president, completing an unusual transition in what has been an unusual year for the Senate.

Since prevailing in March after a somewhat public power struggle, Spilka on July 26 took over from Harriette Chandler, now Senate president emeritas, vowing to finally help the institution "turn the page" from the sordid scandal that took down Stanley Rosenberg and parked a cloud over the Senate for much of the year.

It might be January before the skies fully clear over the upper chamber, but Spilka took the gavel with just five days left for formal sessions, promising that her move from Ways and Means to the president's office will not add another complication to the frantic final days on Beacon Hill.

So about that budget.

Baker, who is coasting into a re-election campaign with barely an acknowledgment that there are gatecrashers knocking on his door, happily put his name on a $41.7 billion spending bill that increased the earned-income tax credit for 450,000 low-income families, invested in education and substance abuse treatment and boosted the state's "rainy day" fund to over $2 billion.

The Legislature had already spared him from having to make a controversial move on immigration by dodging it themselves, and strong economic growth had left the state's coffers full enough to make a little extra spending less nettlesome.

The governor ritualistically carved 293 legislative pet projects out of the budget, amounting to most of the $48.9 million that he trimmed from the bottom line. And among the 19 amendments he filed, the governor balked at the Legislature's plan to pilot congestion tolling on the Turnpike to give drivers who avoid peak hours a discount on their drives.

The fear among some, however, is that the real motivation for testing congestion tolling is not to incentivize off-peak driving, but penalize those who do commute at rush hour. As far as Baker's concerned, legislators "put the cart before the horse" with the proposal, and the administration instead has proposed a full traffic and congestion study of Massachusetts roads and an exploration of all possible solutions. How can you discount non-rush hour trips if you don't know when rush hour is, Baker asked.

DeLeo and Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Sanchez were also turned off by the governor's decision to return a section that would have lifted the restriction on families getting added welfare benefits for a child born while the parent(s) were already receiving public assistance.

Baker said he would lift the so-called "cap on kids" if legislators went along with his proposal to change the way welfare assistance is calculated for those receiving Social Security disability benefits. The governor did not hint what he might do if the Legislature, as expected, rejects his amendment, but DeLeo said he would take the issue up again next session if necessary.

The budget signing was just the tip of the iceberg for Baker, who started exercising the left-hand muscles that could get a lot more use in the coming weeks: sign name, hand out pens, repeat.

The governor also signed a bill that will use a new $2 fee on rental car transactions to fund municipal law enforcement training, choosing police preparedness over a 2014 campaign promise not to raise fees.

That political calculation might have been a little tougher for Baker, who as a Republican takes more pride in his fiscal austerity than his conservative bona fides.

The conundrum for hardcore Republicans that is Charles Duane Baker was actually on full display last week, as the governor made a show of signing into law the "NASTY Women Act" repealing archaic, pre-Roe anti-abortion and contraception laws just days after he wrote a letter to President Donald Trump's administration urging them to back off its plan to cut Title X funding to family planning clinics that offer abortion services.

Baker was also one of three Republican governors, along with Vermont's Phil Scott and Maryland's Larry Hogan, to withhold their names from a letter urging the Senate to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey also provided what was likely an inadvertent one-two punch to the smoking industry.

The governor inked a bill that raises the purchasing age for tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21 statewide at the same time Healey launched an investigation into popular vape pen manufacturer Juul for marketing to minors.

The combined efforts were taken with the goal of further eroding the smoking rates among youth that have been on the decline for years.

Our focus on the Legislature being what it is, this summary should in no way diminish the newsiness of Boston Police Commissioner William Evans stepping down July 23 to run Boston College security, giving way to his No. 2 William Gross, who Mayor Marty Walsh tapped as the first black head of the city's police force in history.

And while it also seems like eons ago that Sen. Barbara L'Italien conned her way onto Fox News by pretending to be the Arizona congresswoman that the news channel actually tried to book, her stunt will go down as one of the more memorable in recent Bay State campaign lore.

L'Italien, with the help of a communications aide who used to work for U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, took advantage of a mistake by Fox producers to go on national television and make a statement directed at Trump admonishing his border policies.

As she tries to break out from the pack in a crowded Congressional primary race that will be decided just days after Labor Day, L'Italien arguably got what she wanted. She was the talk of the town for days.

The only question will be if that attention came with a price, namely voters being turned off by her willingness to tell a few white lies for a little camera time.